VW Planning Additional Shifts to Meet Demand for New Golf

Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Volkswagen AG, Europe’s biggest
carmaker, is planning additional production to meet demand for
the new version of its best-selling Golf hatchback which went on
sale at the end of last year.

Orders for the new model, which arrived in showrooms in
Germany in November, have exceeded 100,000 cars, the Wolfsburg,
Germany-based company said in a statement today. The main
Wolfsburg factory will add three Saturday shifts before the end
of March to build 2,000 additional cars, the company said.

Deliveries of the Golf model totaled 800,000 vehicles last
year, making it the best-selling model in Europe, the company
said. The Golf has led sales in the region for the past nine
years, VW said.

Volkswagen may start to take a hit from low demand in
Europe as the region heads into its sixth consecutive year of
decline. The brand’s sales in Germany, the biggest market in
Europe, fell 23 percent in December amid a 16 percent drop
industrywide in the country, according to the federal motor
vehicle office KBA.

The combined market share of Volkswagen and its affiliated
brands Audi, Seat and Skoda grew to 24.8 percent in Europe last
year from 23.2 percent a year earlier, largely fending off a
market decline of 8 percent.